


Sympathy For The Devil

by LJC



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 12:35:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12232968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LJC/pseuds/LJC
Summary: Set post-Defenders. Matt didn't even realise Karen knew Claire, let alone had her on speed-dial.





	Sympathy For The Devil

Matt didn't even realise Karen _knew_ Claire, let alone had her on speed-dial. Not until he met Karen for breakfast in the diner she had always gone to with Ben, around the corner from the Bulletin's offices.

"Jesus, Matt! What the hell what happened?" Karen asked as he slid into the booth opposite her, twenty minutes late and wiping cold, clammy sweat from his forehead with a napkin as he shrugged off his coat and laid it on the empty half of the vinyl booth next to him.

"What do you mean?"

"You look like you're about to fall over."

"I'm fine." He shook his head, trying to dismiss her concerns. "Just a cold," he said. Or tried to say, before a coughing fit had him almost doubled over in pain, and using the damp napkin to cover his mouth.

Technically, Matt knew he probably should have stopped calling it "just" a cold after it moved into his chest, and he started coughing up endless globs of phlegm and he could barely draw a breath after climbing the first two flights of stairs in his building, let alone free-running across slick rooftops. But he just figured he'd drink more fluids and meditate and he'd be fine in a day or two.

That had been over a week ago. And he hadn't wanted to break the first breakfast not-a-date-date he and Karen had made in months over something as trivial as a head cold.

"Seriously, I've seen you—" she dropped her voice to a whisper, "—half dead from blood loss, and you didn't look half as bad as you do right this second. Also, is that a _neckbeard_?"

"Karen, I'm fine. I'm between cases, and pushing fluids and resting. What else do you want me to do?"

"Call Claire," she said, immediately. 

Matt hung his head, setting his glasses on the edge of the table.

Broken bones, stab wounds, bullet grazes, concussion, and road rash—if he were suffering from any one of those injuries sustained on the (vigilante) job, he wouldn't have hesitated to pull the burner phone out of the pocket hidden on the left leg of his suit and dialled Claire.

Even after everything that had happened, even after she moved Uptown (which as far as Matt was concerned could be the _moon_ since his entire world consisted of ten square blocks give or take) his first instinct was always to call Claire. Because whatever they had been to one another—whatever they still were, if she found out he died from lack of medical attention, he'd never hear the end of it.

(Matt is also aware that technically, he wouldn't—except if he did actually manage not to damn himself, he was pretty sure Heaven included the sound of Claire Temple's voice—even if she was cursing him out and calling him a hundred different kinds of reckless idiot.)

But a cold? That just seemed... _excessive_.

"All I need is soup and a few days off. It's just—"

"—Bronchitis? Walking pneumonia? A _death rattle_ in your chest every time you try to breathe?" Her voice rose, and Matt heard a hush fall over the early morning regulars at the counter nearest to their booth.

Their server came over, pot of coffee in hand. "Ready to order, or do you need a few more minutes?"

"Can you give us a minute?" Matt and Karen said simultaneously.

"No problem. Warm up?" she asked Karen, who shook her head.

"I'm fine."

"Just let me know when you're ready," the server said before carrying her coffee-pot to the next occupied booth. Karen waited until she was out of earshot before continuing.

"Matt, I'm serious. You could die of a bacterial infection at this rate. Do you really want your legacy to be 'he ignored a cold until he worked himself up into a Jim Henson-like state, and expired on his way to the office?'"

"A Jim Henson-like state?"

"As in, untreated case of strep that killed him in less than a week? _Yes._ That's exactly what I am afraid of. How long have you been coughing up green goo?"

"In my defence, I can't actually tell what colour—"

"No. No deflecting. And no blind jokes. I am actively angry at you right now. You _of all people_ should know how dangerous it is to push yourself to the point of collapse!"

"I didn't—" Matt winced, and lowered his voice. "I didn't push myself to the point of collapse, I had _a building fall on me_." 

"Fine." Karen began digging through her coat pockets. " _I'm_ calling Claire."

Matt made a grab for her phone, but it was a testament to his state that not only did she easily lean back out of his limited reach, but he knocked over a small pitcher of pancake syrup, and sent his knife and spoon clattering across the worn linoleum floor.

He could hear Claire's phone ringing as Karen handed him her napkin so he could try and mop up the sticky-sweet mess. He scowled at her, and moved his glasses out of the way before they ended up in a pool of high fructose corn syrup, caramel food colouring, and artificial maple flavouring. He couldn't see Karen's face, but he really didn't have to see her to know she was giving him a death glare.

"Karen—"

She just held up her hand, and he fell silent.

A busboy came over, and picked up his fallen silverware before grabbing an unused set from another table.

"Sorry," he said lamely, but the man was already out of earshot, clearing dishes, mugs, and glasses from another table and balancing them in his Rubbermaid bin. 

Matt thought about trying to make a break for it when Claire answered, and Karen got up and walked over by the restrooms, so no-one (else) could overhear. As it was, he was having difficulty hearing either side of the phone conversation.But he had only been out of bed for an hour, and he was already so exhausted that trying to filter out all the ambient noise in a two block radius and isolate the conversation was giving him a headache. Actually trying to sneak out and make it back to his building seemed like courting disaster.

So he finished his water, and started on Karen's, while trying not to hear Claire's voice in his head telling him he was marinating in his own misery.

He supposed Karen having Claire's contact info made perfect sense. He'd told Karen about Claire in the abstract, when he'd come clean to her about being Daredevil. But he'd never told her Claire's name, or that there had been more between them than her patching him up. But then, Karen hadn't exactly needed a calculator to put two and two together. Especially after Foggy had apparently made a beeline for Claire the second Detective Knight had brought the three of them into the precinct, bloody and unconscious, after Elektra had killed Stick. 

And they had more than just that night in the Harlem in common. Foggy had worked with Claire on Luke's case for months, and it was likely that if it hadn't been his night job that brought them together, they probably would have met socially eventually. 

(That thought actually scared Matt. Just a little.)

He sat up straighter, about to apologise about drinking her water when Karen came back to the table.

"C'mon, we're leaving." Instead of sitting back down, as she waved the server over to get the check for her coffee. 

Matt held up the plastic-coated menu that was definitely not in Braille. "I haven't had breakfast."

"I'll get you something, after we get there." She grabbed her coat off the empty half of her side of the booth, and pulled her scarf and hat from the inside of the sleeve, where she'd tucked them for safe-keeping just like Foggy's mother had taught him to do. "I'm sure there's a Starbucks around there someplace—the Coldbuster from the secret menu, plus a cheese Danish should perk you right up."

"Get where? And what do you mean 'we'?"

She helped him into his coat, and put his cane in his hand. Matt heard the wind whistling through the buildings, and realised he probably should have worn more than just an overcoat. Maybe some layers. Gloves. The wool blanket off the back of his sofa.

"Yes— _we_. Neither I nor Claire trust you to make it all the way to Harlem on your own." Her grip on his elbow was firm. "We—as in _you_ with me as chaperone—are going the clinic where Claire works, so she can get you checked out before you pass out. With any luck, you can get a nice five day Z-Pak, chest x-ray, and be put on a ventilator before you start _coughing up blood_."

His fingers were clumsy as he tried buttoning the coat all the way up to his chin. "That's a little dramatic, don't you think?"

"You tell me; you're the reigning drama queen." She swiped the screen of her smartphone with her thumb twice, before dropping it back into her coat pocket. "Uber has been summoned, and will be here in four minutes."

"If it is bronchitis, you know that's usually viral, and all antibiotics will do is make me possibly resistant to antibiotics in the future, right?"

"Shut up."

"Karen—"

"I said _shut up_."

"Somehow I thought you'd be more sympathetic," Matt grumbled. "Maybe offer to bring me matzo ball soup, sit at my bedside, mop my fevered brow with a nice cold compress."

"Seriously?"

"That's what Sister Grace did, when I got rheumatic fever as a kid in the orphanage."

"First the blind card, now the orphanage card? _Really?_ " 

He could hear the smile in her voice. "You sound like Foggy."

"That's because if he were here, night job or no night job, he'd have called an ambulance as soon as you walked in. Instead, I think it is generous—no, _magnanimous_ of me to miss two meetings _and_ a Rand press conference to personally hand-deliver you to the one healthcare professional in the city who has already seen all your scars and won't ask any questions."

"Magnanimous?" Maybe it was the lack of oxygen making him slightly loopy, but he couldn't stop the grin that split his face as she carefully placed his glasses on the bridge of his nose, her fingers sliding through his damp hair as she looped the side-pieces over his ears.

"It's one of Ellison's favourite $10 words." 

He wondered for a moment if the Bulletin had a swear jar, except for words about an 8th grade reading level that were banned from the front page. Before he could ask, Karen marched him to the seating area to wait while she paid her bill. The vinyl bench smelled very faintly of baby vomit. Matt wondered if it wouldn't have been better to have spilled the fake-maple syrup all over himself instead. 

"Working with Ellison has made you cynical," he observed as she thanked the woman behind the register and left a tip that was probably more than her coffee had actually cost. Then Karen took her wool scarf and wrapped it three times around his neck. Possibly just a _little_ too tightly. 

"Absolutely." She leaned down, mouth to his ear, her voice like honey and sunshine. "I am a stone-cold, unfeeling, heartless crime reporter who is _completely one hundred percent_ immune to those puppy-dog eyes. And I'm not going to be sympathetic until you _go to a doctor_."

"Sorry. If it helps, I could probably just call Danny Rand—"

"Not really," Karen said with a sigh, "Not unless Ward Meachum is standing right next to him, seeing as Danny probably knows even less than I do about Rand's third quarter results and new acquisitions."

She patted his knee absently with one hand while the texted lightning-fast with the other. "But thanks for the offer."

Matt didn't have the energy to argue with her. In fact, lulled by the scent of her hair drifting up from the scarf around his neck, he fell asleep in the backseat of the car. 

When he woke, it was to find he'd laid his head on her shoulder, and the inside of his mouth felt cotton-y and Claire was laughing on the other side of the car door.

He tried to pat his hair down flat as he groggily followed Karen out of the car, and scowled when he realised Claire had met them at the kerb with a wheelchair.

"Blind, not an invalid."

"I'll be the judge of that," Claire said cheerfully, and then gave Karen a quick hug. "Wow, you weren't kidding."

"About what?"

"The beard. Also, Matt looking like shit."

"Also not deaf," Matt pointed out, trying not to shiver despite his overcoat wrapped tightly around him like a blanket.

"Oh please, like you don't know." Claire took his folded cane, and handed it to him. She wheeled him in through the side door, the one the nurses and admin staff used (the doctors used the back door, since they had parking spaces in the tiny lot). 

"Thanks for this. I know it's a pain in the ass," Karen said softly as they followed a short hall to an empty exam room.

"Yeah, but he's _our_ pain in the ass," Claire said, and ruffled his hair affectionately, before he heard (smelled) the snap of nitrile gloves. "And it was time for my break anyway. Now, you gonna need help getting your ass up on this table?"

Matt scowled, and began unbuttoning his coat. He didn't know if anything was visible from the windows so he kept up the pantomime of feeling for the edge of the padded exam bed—at least, that's what he told himself. Not that he didn't need the support in order to make the short hop up onto the bed. The white butcher's paper beneath him rustled as he dangled his legs over the end.

"Off," Claire said, tugging at the zipper of his sweatshirt.

Claire clicked her tongue against her teeth as she unzipped his hoodie and found all he had on beneath it was a white tank top.

"You do know it's not exactly balmy out there, right?" Claire said dryly, and he gave her a one-shouldered shrug.

He slid his hoodie off, a little _too_ aware that from where she stood leaning against the counter, arms crossed, Karen was likely using the opportunity to try and check his scars against her memory. 

He tried to remember if there were any new ones since she'd seen him last. Probably.

"Pretty sure he slept in it, and just threw the coat on when he realised he was late," Karen said, and Matt wished he could contradict her version of events. Except, barring brushing his teeth and tugging on his shoes, her assessment was pretty accurate. He couldn't remember if he'd actually bothered to comb his hair. Normally, he really did make the effort. Especially for Karen. But he had been running late, and slow.

(He probably hadn't bothered to comb his hair.)

Matt kept his hoodie in his lap while Claire pressed her (warmed, at least) stethoscope to his chest and then back, directing him to breathe normally. This time the coughing fit wasn't quite as bad as the one in the restaurant, but it still made his entire abdomen ache. Claire handed him a paper folded napkin from the dispenser mounted over the sink and he spat into it, disgusted.

" _Lovely_ ," Claire said as she took it from him, and dropped it in the metal waste bin. "OK, I think we can forego the chest X-ray. But I need to swab your throat to test for strep. You gonna throw up on me?"

"Probably not. I haven't eaten anything since last night."

"Last night being...?" Claire prompted.

"Um, about 4:30?" That sounded right. He remembered hitting his clock to see what time it was after he woke up from a nap, and it couldn't have been much later than that, based on the sounds of foot and street traffic outside, combined with Fran's TV from across the hall. "I had two bowls of soup, and a couple of cups of herbal tea."

"What kind of soup?"

"Dashi, from the noodle place."

"You can put that back on," Claire gestured to his sweatshirt. "Any protein?"

"Fishcake, fishballs, and shrimp."

Claire made a noise that he was pretty sure was disapproving, followed by a drawn out sigh.

"OK, at least it's a better liquid diet than _some_ of our mutual friends have," Claire muttered, and Matt would have laughed if it weren't for his fear that he'd have another coughing fit. 

She touched his jaw with two gloved fingers. "Open wide."

Matt did his best not to gag as she swiped the back of his throat with the cotton swab, and then stepped back to do whatever magic she needed to do, to run the rapid antigen test. At least he'd know in about five minutes whether or not he had strep throat, and it would put Karen's mind to rest at least.

"OK, while we wait for that, how long has all this—" Claire made a circular gesture that encompassed pretty much all of him, "—been going on?"

"A few days—" he started to say, but Karen spoke over him.

"At least a week, probably two." At Matt's look, she shrugged. "I talk to you on the phone, remember? I may not have ears like a bat, but even I can tell when you're sick."

"OK, walk me through this. You got a cold, like a normal person. And then instead of clearing up, it got worse and you developed a cough. And when it didn't go away, and you started coughing up crap, you cut back on—what—maybe _half_ your activities?"

"Do I get to answer for myself, or should I allow Ms Page to continue answering for me?" Matt said dryly.

Claire actually smacked him on the back of the head lightly.

"When the cough got worse, I stopped going out. At night," he clarified, sounding only slightly defeated. 

"So, a week ago? Two?"

"More like five days," he admitted sheepishly.

Karen's sigh coincided he was pretty sure with her burying her face in both hands.

"And how've you been sleeping?" Claire continued on, using what Matt recognised as her gentle-but-firm nurse voice.

"Normally I only need three to six—"

"Yeah. Not what I asked," she interrupted him, and then repeated her question in exactly the same calm, patient tone she'd been using. "How have you been sleeping?"

"Cough kept me up at first, then I crashed pretty hard. Nine hours most nights, give or take? Spent most of the week-end on the couch, and tried to get as much rest and fluids as I could, Dr Temple."

"Good boy," she said, and he was tempted to ask if this meant she'd give him a lolly when she was finished. "What about your breathing?" 

"Only having trouble with cold, dry air, or if I'm, um... exerting myself."

"So, I'm gonna go with _all the time_ , then, and give you a prescription for a rescue inhaler. And I might as well give you a nebuliser treatment while I have you cornered and docile."

"Funny."

"Hey," Karen said, coming over to poke his shoulder with a stiff finger. "Just be lucky I don't ask her to tag you with a GPS locator, for the _next_ time you disappear on us for weeks."

"And then after the neb, you are going to go home, and keep on pushing fluids while you rest in bed for minimum of _two weeks_." He opened his mouth to protest, but Claire ignored him "Not kidding. Fourteen consecutive days of no lawyering _or_ devilling. Just resting, preferably somewhere next to a humidifier." She turned to Karen. "I'll work up a schedule."

"Schedule?" Matt echoed, confused.

"So you'll know which of us is checking on you and when, so you don't flip out and punch Danny or Luke if they surprise you. Which would probably hurt you more than him, but you know that. Luke, I mean. Obviously, not Danny."

His eyebrows shot up. "I'm allowed to punch Danny?"

"It's good for him. Keeps him humble."

"What about Jess?"

"Only if she punches you first."

Matt gave Claire what he hoped was a severe look. "Is Jessica gonna be on your schedule?"

"Oh _hell_ no. Malcolm can bring you Emergen-C and soup. Him, I trust. Jess would convince you Nyquil chased with whiskey cures all ills."

Matt wrinkled his nose. "You mean it doesn't?"

"Maybe for Jessica—but not you, Mister I-don't-have-any-fancy-healing-factor-I-just-meditate."

"Seriously?" Karen sounded surprised.

"Oh, yeah. It's how he avoids any painkiller stronger than Advil. He never told you that? _Classic_ Matt Murdock."

Matt crossed his arms. "I don't know how I feel about the two of you ganging up on me."

"Honoured, cherished, loved, and luckier than you goddam deserve," Claire said sweetly, giving him a smacking kiss on the forehead (which he would have protested, but it was more than likely that Claire, unlike Matt, had actually gotten a flu shot). "Because here's thing about having people in your life who give a damn," Claire continued, "It means we actually, you know, _give a damn_."

Matt could feel his neck and ears burning, and the paper crackled under his hands as his grip on the edge of the examination bed tightened. 

"So the next time you can barely get your ass out of bed because you've got—Jesus, I don't know. Shingles. Scarlet Fever. _Whatever_. You don't wait to pick up the goddam phone."

"I didn't want to bother you," he said meekly.

She smacked the back of his head again lightly.

"You falling off a rooftop and landing on your stupid horny head bothers me, but so does the idea of you dying of asphyxiation in you own home. Karen, back me up here?"

"I'm 100% totally with Claire on this one. Which obviously doesn't come as a surprise, but here's the thing—" Karen bent at the waist, her breath stirring his hair as she brought her lips close to his ear. " _I'm gonna tell Foggy._ " 

He didn't need his sight to know the smile on her face—which most people probably mistakenly believed was sweet and benign—was in fact pure evil to the depths of her soul. 

"I'm gonna tell Foggy every single gross and gory little detail. And I'm probably going to be just a teeny tiny bit hyperbolic," Karen continued, a mercilessly gleeful note in her voice. "Not enough to freak him out completely, but _just_ enough that you so much as sneeze in his presence, and your ass is in bed with that cabbage soup from that deli in Brighton Beach Mrs Nelson swears by."

"Oh, you're _good_ ," Claire said appreciatively. "Cabbage smell lasts for _days_."

"And unlike Claire, I will _totally_ make sure Trish tells Jessica all about this. And not only will she mock you even more than she already does, but she has a key to your place."

"Since when?"

"Since she lives closer than either me or Foggy, can throw a car, and is listed as an emergency contact for the next time you do something life-threateningly stupid like getting a building dropped on your head." 

"I didn't _let_ —"

"And did I mention has super-strength and can throw a car? And here's what I _really_ love about Jessica. She'd _totally_ tie you to a chair or the bed or your sofa, if Trish asked her to."

"Trish probably wouldn't even have to ask," Claire pointed out.

"You're right. It's Jessica Jones. She'd do it for free. Hell, she'd probably even film it with that fancy new DSLR you got her and put it up on YouTube."

"How do you even know—"

"Malcolm," Claire and Karen said simultaneously. 

"You know all the shit we're giving you right now?" Claire asked, finger dancing back and forth between her and Karen. "Malcolm and Trish are the Jessica squad."

"Oh, and Foggy's boss at HC&B," Karen added.

"Right, right. I always forget about Hogarth."

"How? She's _terrifying_."

"I dunno—once you've heard Danny call her 'C-Money' to her face, she doesn't seem quite as much of a shark in nylons."

Having actually gone up against Hogarth in court, Matt was glad he was already sitting down. All of this new information hitting him at once was more than a little overwhelming.

Karen bumped his shoulder with hers. "Funny thing about meeting a bunch of people who _also_ have people they care about who go out and fight ninjas. You actually end up seeing a lot of each other."

"And when you do," Claire continued, "you check in, you know? See how everybody's doing. Get caught up on all the gossip."

"And your trade stories, and sometimes you have a few laughs—"

"—and sometimes it's more like a shoulder to cry on."

"Or just need somebody to bitch to," Claire said brightly, "who understands _exactly_ what you're going through."

Matt swallowed. "How many _somebodys_ are we talking about?"

"You know how you guys got together and rescued Danny from the Hand, and realised _maybe_ having back-up sometimes when you're completely in over your head is a good thing?" Claire asked, and he winced as he remembered their conversation at Metro-General, before she quit.

"You guys weren't the only ones," Karen said. "It was Foggy's idea, actually. More of a joke, really, when he introduced me to Claire."

"I'd forgot about that!" Claire laughed. "Anyway, eventually, one of the those folks—probably either the social worker or one of the _two_ investigative reporters, I can't actually remember—figured out that hey, being on the phone tree should probably involve _an actual phone tree_."

The idea that _Jeri Hogarth_ might someday get a text—or worse, a _phone call_ —from Karen about him actually made Matt glad he hadn't had breakfast. Because if he had, he's pretty sure he'd lose it.

"Oh, yeah," Karen said, and he could hear that damned smile again. "I've got names in my phone that you will never know about, Matt. I even have Fr Lantom's number. Yeah, you heard right. You fuck up badly enough, we call in the big guns."

"So much for seal of the confessional," he muttered.

"Hey—don't. He knew, we knew. He _knew_ that we knew. It's not like we talk all the time."

"And speaking of big guns, we've also got Misty and Colleen, too," Claire added, dropping the paper testing strip into the vial. "I don't care how much boxing and MMA and parkour and shit you can do. Now that she's got her fancy new arm, Misty Knight will _put you down_. And trust me, Colleen Wing will _keep_ you down."

Matt let his head drop until his chin nearly touched his sternum, and scrubbed the sweat from his face with one hand.

"There is really nothing I can say to convince you having a phone tree is a terrible idea and puts you all in danger, is there?"

He could sense Claire and Karen were trading looks—what looks he wasn't sure, but Karen sighed, and gave him a one-armed hug.

"Matt, with or without a phone tree, we're always gonna be in somebody's crosshairs. _Not_ because you didn't protect us. But because we're always going to be right there with you on the front lines."

He closed his eyes, brows drawing together in a frown.

"In case you haven't noticed," Claire said, coming up on his other side to give his bicep a gentle squeeze, "no matter how many times you try to push people away? The ones who care keep coming back."

His frown relaxed, and Matt sighed.

"Oh hey—no strep!" Claire said as she checked the testing strip. "I'm officially diagnosing you with acute bronchitis. And since this started with a cold, I'm gonna skip the antibiotics—"

"—since it's most likely viral," Matt added, for Karen's benefit.

"Yes. And I'd like to keep you from becoming resistant to antibiotics as much as possible, since you tend to get stabbed a lot. Which you really need to talk to Melvin about, one of these days."

"How—"

"Jessica," Karen and Claire said, almost exactly at the same time. And Matt was really starting to hate it when they did that.

"Is there anyone in the five boroughs who doesn't know who the Devil of Hell's Kitchen is under the mask?"

"If it makes you feel any better, Trish and Malcolm figured it out after Midland Circle."

"So did Misty," Claire added.

"And apparently Hogarth's known since the Castle case. That's part of why she hired Foggy. But Brett's not on the phone tree, does that help? And I'm pretty sure Rand's C.E.O. has no idea."

"But you know... it's Danny," Claire added. "So who knows what Ward Meachum knows at this point. However, if it makes you feel better, I don't think Colleen actually cares."

"Wait." A realisation hit him, almost making him dizzy. "Does _Jessica_ know there's a Jessica squad?"

"If she hasn't figured it out by now, then she must be a really sucky PI," Karen replied.

"And for the record, Luke's fine with it," Claire said as she zipped his hoodie back up. "Probably because I'm on _everybody's_ squad."

"Squad Captain," Karen said with a nod.

"Just... promise me, _promise me_ there's no group texts that could someday be subpoenaed by a judge."

"Of course! We'd never do that to Foggy," Karen added.

"Cross my heart." Claire added, finger tracing the _X_ over her scrubs.

"Look at it this way," Karen said as she rubbed his back lightly. "At least Frank's not on the phone tree."

Her unspoken _yet_ hung in the air, halfway between a promise and a threat.


End file.
